Moreno Valley Mall set to reopen Thursday, March 5

The Moreno Valley Mall can reopen under certain conditions, Moreno Valley’s city attorney said Wednesday night, March 4.

The announcement by Steven Quintanilla appears to bring to an end a nearly two-week closure, prompted by fire safety concerns, that left scores of mall employees and business owners in limbo.

RELATED: Moreno Valley Mall could reopen Wednesday if fire doors pass inspection

According to Quintanilla, the city’s closure order will be lifted with the following caveats:

• The mall must retain “qualified fire watch individuals” to monitor, and help with the opening and closing, of two fire-rated doors designed to contain smokes and flames in case of a blaze.
• The fire watch will continue until the city’s inspectors confirm the doors have been property repaired or replaced. The mall must do so by March 31 or the closure order would be automatically reinstated.
• Before reopening, the mall must temporarily seal two fire-rated doors “to prevent the passage of smoke and hot gasses.” That must be done by March 31 or the closure order would go back into effect.
• On-site emergency generators must be repaired or replaced before expiration of a temporary generator permit, which was issued for a maximum of 90 days.
• The mall’s owner must indemnify the city for any loss, injury, death or damage stemming from a fire.

City officials plan to remove the notices to vacate at 7 a.m. Thursday, March 5, Moreno Valley Mayor Ulises Cabrera said on Instagram.

“I want to thank our fire department, building and safety team, city staff, and my City Council colleagues for their work and cooperation throughout this process to ensure public safety while moving toward reopening,” the mayor wrote.

He also thanked the mall’s businesses, employees and their families.

“I’m glad that many will now be able to reopen their businesses, return to their jobs, and get back to serving our community and I remain committed to supporting them as we move forward,” Cabrera wrote.

Of the nine violations that spurred the mall’s closure, just one — fire doors — remained unresolved going into Wednesday, March 4.

On Tuesday afternoon, March 3, Quintanilla said the closure order could be lifted Wednesday if fire officials sign off on the fire-rated doors, which are designed to contain flames and smoke during a blaze.

During Tuesday night’s Moreno Valley City Council meeting, Fire Chief Jesse Park said the mall had been making steady progress toward reopening.

In an Instagram post Wednesday, the mall reiterated its commitment to reopening as soon as possible.

The post included a link to a GoFundMe campaign to help mall tenants and employees affected by the closure.

In an unprecedented move, the city on Feb. 19 shut down the mall off the 60 Freeway due to what officials described as “numerous health and safety code violations (that) have been identified as posing significant risks to tenants and customers alike.”

JCPenney, Macy’s and Harkins Theatres were allowed to stay open because their fire response systems are independent of the mall’s, officials said.

The closure put mall employees and shop owners in limbo and wondering how they’d make ends meet. They urged the city council to reopen the mall as soon as possible.

Besides shops and restaurants, the mall also is home to a school and city library branch. Moreno Valley also plans to build the city’s first-ever museum inside the mall’s former Sears building.

Quintanilla, Park and other city officials said the closure was not a spur-of-the-moment decision.

Rather, they said it followed a long pattern of serious violations that mall management ignored and refused to fix. The alleged infractions ranged from ripped-out sprinkler systems and a faulty emergency generator to high-piled storage blocking fire exits and missing paperwork.

Mall owner Matt Ilbak has said the mall “was surprised by the city’s actions.” The city raised concerns about the mall “just over a month ago” and the mall “was in regular communication with the city” about scheduling inspections and testing, according to Ilbak.

At a special Feb. 26 council meeting about the closure, mall attorney John Stephens said the mall shouldn’t have been red-tagged and that the city’s documents “were procedurally deficient.”

In January, Quintanilla and Moreno Valley City Manager Brian Mohan sent a letter to Ilbak outlining a series of issues the city had with the 87-acre, two-story shopping center that opened in 1992.

According to the letter, the mall has racked up 88 code violations since 2019 and owes almost $700,000 to the city for code infractions and on-site law enforcement services.

The letter also describes a pattern of problems, from unauthorized construction and events to cracked pavement, dead landscaping and faulty escalators.

Despite this, council members, while defending the closure, insisted they wanted the mall to reopen as soon as it could. Mall management insisted it was working nonstop to fix the violations and get the building reopened.